Due diligence by an alert cop helped unearth a road accident which the perpetrator tried to pass off as a natural death of an elderly woman.
On September 10, 73-year-old Pushpa Keni was brought to Sion Hospital by a 43-year-old man, who narrated the story of how the elderly lady collapsed in front of his vehicle and he was the good Samaritan rushing her to a medical facility.
A resident of Bhandarwada in Sion, Keni was returning home at the time of the incident. As per her son Prashant, 56, she used to go to the temple on foot every Ekadashi. She left home at 3pm and within 30 minutes the family received a call that she had “collapsed” on the road in front of a vehicle and the driver, Ismail Ansari, rushed her to hospital. Keni died the next day and the grieving family thanked Ansari for trying to save her. They, therefore, didn’t register a case with the police.
The police were notified about the matter by the hospital, though. As the family hadn’t approached them, police sub-inspector Indrajit Chavan went through CCTV camera footage of the day of the accident and found Ansari’s Toyota Innova knocking down Keni when she was crossing the road. The footage also showed Ansari picking up the victim and shifting her inside the car.
On September 16, Chavan called up Prashant Keni and asked him to come down to the police station where he showed him the footage. “Prashant refused to register an FIR despite telling him multiple times. So we arrested Ansari suo moto,” said a senior police official.
Ansari was arrested on Sunday evening under section 279 (rash driving), 304A (causing death due to negligence), 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 184 (driving dangerously) and 134 (b) (not reporting the circumstances of the occurrence (accident) to a police officer or a police station), of the Motor Vehicles Act. A driver by profession, Ansari was presented in court on Monday by the police.
